Young starlet Todd excels for Harriers in Clongowes Wood

On a blustery January day at Clongowes Wood College, most of the Tullamore Harriers Juvenile athletes began there schools cross country seasons. The eleven athletes who qualified for their provincial championships should be rightly proud of their achievements. Tullamore College's Cara Todd was the outstanding performer of the day. Running 1500m in the Junior girls race, she was in the lead group from the start and pushed the pace all the way. She eventually broke clear with about a quarter of the race left and pushed for home to win gold in her first ever secondary schools race. Nadine Donegan in 5th, Keelin Gulifoyle in 12th and Emily Grennan in 13th have all also qualified for the Leinster Cross Country to be held on 8th February in Santry. Alison Mooney, Ciara Galvin, and Emma Horan also competed well. The Sacred Heart team were second in the team competition. In the Junior boys race, Chinnie Izuchukwu battled hard for the full 2.5km and his efforts paid off with a silver medal won despite being tired from a football match the previous day. In the Intermediate Girls race Killina School athlete Nicole Cuskelly ran brilliantly and her silver medal is a sign of how well Nicole has trained since Christmas. Sinead Rigney in 12th also qualified for the Leinsters. The following day in Waterford, Eileen Rafter came fourth in the East Munster Schools when representing the Ursuline, Thurles. In the Intermediate Boys race, Barry Mooney and Diarmuid O'Carroll, running for Tullamore College and Birr Community School respectively, finished 8th and 15th respectively and qualified for the Leinsters. Glenn Cunningham and Dermot Bracken also competed strongly in this event. In the senior boys, another two Tullamore athletes qualified for the Leinsters. Jason Donegan in 7th and Joe Gilligan in 8th fought all the way and earned their place on the starting line in two weeks through sheer hard work. In the minor ages, a number of Tullamore athletes competed and Sarah Bracken, Muireann McDaid, Shannon Abbott and Conor Butler have great schools careers to look forward to. Raheny Road Races Thirty-seven young Harriers athletes left Tullamore on Sunday to travel to Dublin for the Raheny Road Races. There were two juvenile races - an 800m for boys and girls up to 12 years of age, while those aged 13 to 16 ran a mile. Both races were mixed with girls and boys pitted against one another. Two hundred and fifty athletes lined up for the start of the of the 800m. Tullamore athletes, with experience from many cross country starts were able to get out from the pack early on and the commentator seemed shocked by the numbers of blue and white singlets on display. Eoin Mulligan was the club's first boy home in third position and won a beautiful plaque for his trouble. Amazingly, Niamh Rafter was next across the line, having beaten all but three of the over one hundred boys competing. She led a clean sweep for Tullamore as Amy Cuskelly finished second and Danielle Donegan closely followed her in third place. In the mile race, Chinnie Izuchukwu was in the lead group from the start and although he lost some ground near the end, the fact that he was almost two years younger than first and second should indicate how well he ran to come home third. In the girls competition, Nicole Cuskelly and Cara Todd came second and third to prove that a tough week's racing and training still hadn't blunted their competitive edge. In total of the twelve plaques to be won, Tullamore athletes won seven and all 37 athletes got a medal and goodie bag for their troubles. Combined Events On Saturday Keelin Guilfoyle travelled to Nenagh to compete in the All-Ireland Combined Events. Keelin competed well throughout the long day. Her finishing position of twelfth in the country is a clear sign that Keelin shows a lot of potential in this event. Her performance included : 60m Hurdles- 11.79, Long Jump- 4.22, Shot Putt- 8.82, High Jump- 4.22 and 800m- 2.48. Leinster Indoors Relays, Junior & Senior Last Sunday saw another busy day for Tullamore Harrier athletes in Nenagh. Larry O'Reilly and Feargus Hannon both ran in the Senior 200m with Feargus taking a well deserved gold having stormed out from the blocks all the way to the finish, in a time of 23.09, and Larry finishing in 23.15. Both boys also ran in the 60m and put in fine performances in a blistering race, official times for this race were not available at the time of going to press. Darragh MacNamara continues to improve finishing a very close second in the Junior 200m and taking .5 off his personal best in a time of 23.30, just .1 of a second behind gold. Two relay teams also raced on the day with the Boys U/13 4 x 100m team of Christopher Whittle, Mark Milner, Ciaran Mulligan and James Dunne battling away in the Heats to take silver behind an in-form Menapians team and this turned out to be the result in the final also. All four boys ran really well on the day and deserved their silver medals. The Boys U/19 team also took silver in the 4 x 200m in a close finish, Paddy Heffernan set off with his usual speed out of the blocks and Eoin Delaney did very well to hand over to Conor Leavy who battled well and handed over to Darragh MacNamara in second and this proved the final result. All in all, it has been a fantastic week of athletics for Tullamore Harriers and just reward for all the hard work by athletes and coaches Tom Godley, Damian Lawlor, Niamh MacNamara who helped the U/13 relay, and Nick Hannon.